All Episodes
Previous Next
June 4, 2008 - Rush Limbaugh Program
35:19
June 4, 2008, Wednesday, Hour #3
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
No, no, I'm a little mad about things.
Yeah, I get to...
No, it was a tough night last night.
All right, I'll explain it here just a second.
Greetings and welcome back, ladies and gentlemen.
Great to have you here, Rush Limbo and the EIB Network, the distinguished and prestigious Limbo Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
Telephone number is 800-282-2882.
The email address is LRushbo at EIBNet.com.
Coming up in this hour, we have some soundbites from Senator McCain last night.
He was the first of the three presidential candidates to speak in New Orleans.
We have a couple of soundbites from Senator McCain from this morning on Good Morning America that back up his speech comments last night.
Now, a little story here.
Everybody's asking me here, what are you so edgy about today?
I'm not edgy.
You just didn't get a whole lot of sleep last night.
You know, we treat our little pets like our kids, especially if you don't have kids.
You treat the little animals like your kids.
And Punkin had to go to the vet today for, it's a standard checkup, uranalysis and the teeth cleaning.
And because you can't make a cat pee on demand and you can't get a cat to hold still while you brush its teeth, they have to anesthetize the cat at the vet's office.
And that means, just like human beings, you cannot feed the cat for a period of 12 hours prior to the cat's appointment at the doctor.
So that meant 8 o'clock last night.
Could not feed Punkin after 8 o'clock.
So made sure she had something to eat about 7.30.
And then all the bowls, I emptied them out, left the bowls there empty.
She got two places in the house where she eats.
And by rote, by pattern, she came down to the library about 11.30, where I was feverishly working on comments after I'd watched all these speeches last night.
And she starts rubbing against my legs, jumping up on my lap, starts head-butting me.
And I know what that means.
It means she wants to eat.
And I looked at her and said, I'm sorry.
I looked right into her eyes.
I'm sorry, Punky, but I can't feed you.
I just, and she doesn't know what I'm saying.
She's a cat.
So I get upstairs, and as a habit, she leads me into her room, thinking, because I feed her right before I go to bed, just as it's become a habit.
She leads me, and then I have to go in there anyway to get something.
When I don't feed her, she just gets this perplexed look on the face.
And I'm saying, sweetie, I can't feed you.
You have to go to the doctor tomorrow.
And of course, she doesn't know what I'm saying.
I mean, I'm talking to an animal.
It just has this big almond eyes just looking at me like this doesn't make sense to her.
So I go get in bed.
I'm going to get in bed about 1 o'clock, 1.30.
And in five minutes, a cat jumps into me.
She never sleeps with me.
I mean, maybe once in a blue moon.
She got underneath the covers.
She started biting my toes.
She started licking.
She's furrowing around under there like a ferret.
I ignore her.
I'm trying to go to sleep.
Big day tomorrow on the EIB network, I'm saying to myself.
I said, Punky, I'm sorry, I can't feed you.
She finally motivates out from underneath the covers and gets on the pillow and starts head-butting me.
And I just ignore her, and I'm feeling like I'm just a little cat.
All I want to do is feed this little cat because she hadn't eaten in a while.
Can't do it because she's got to go to the doctor.
Finally, I fall asleep, and at 4.30 or 5, here come the head-butts again.
She's not mad.
She wants to eat.
She said, don't understand why I'm, you know, we create little habits in our animals, and this was a big break in the routine and the habit.
There was no food.
And this, you know, only happens twice a year for these checkups, so the animal can't get used to it.
So finally, at 7.30, I got up, and this little cat bounded out of the bed and just ran as happily and joyously to her little room where I feed her, leading me all the way.
I just watched her go, and she turned around, stopped when seeing I didn't follow her.
And she would just the saddest look.
And then she'd take a couple steps and turn around and see if I was following her.
I said, Punky, I'm sorry, I can't feed you.
And I say to myself, again, I'm talking to a cat.
So I finally just went into my bathroom and did something else I never do, and that's shut the door.
I got two doors into the bathroom closet complex, and I closed the outer door so she couldn't get in there and make me feel even guiltier because actually what I'm doing is for her own safety and so forth.
So one of the members of the staff was going to come up and get her at 8 o'clock and put her in a little cat cage and take her to the vet.
And I came out, got out of the shower, and cat was gone.
And it was just tough.
Just so happy this morning.
Oh, finally, I'm going to get to eat.
And she didn't get to eat.
Just trying to lead me in there, taking two steps and looking back at me.
Heartbreaking, heartbreaking stuff.
I know this has been a tough day.
I'm letting everybody down.
I got a guy from Houston named Pete calling me, saying I'm a wimp that I'm ineffectual.
I'm not doing enough to lead conservatives out of the wilderness and darkness.
Pete wants to be fed, and I don't have any food for Pete.
And I didn't have any food for Mona yesterday.
Well, I tried feeding Mona, but I don't know if she swallowed it.
Don't know if she ate it.
And pumpkin, the cat couldn't feed her.
I mean, I'm just letting everybody down, it seems like today.
But speaking of Pete from Houston, he called up, I'm an ineffectual wimp.
I'm not doing enough to make conservatism triumphant.
And Mona was a little bit that way, too.
And by the way, I understand, folks, you're not being really critical.
You are just filled with hope.
You don't think you can do anything by yourselves.
You're anonymous.
And I also know, I also know that the success, the overwhelming success of Operation Chaos has demonstrated that this program has power within the electoral field beyond the bounds of the radio program itself and its audience.
And of course, this studio.
Speaking of Operation Chaos, remember, Mrs. Clinton last night wants to hear from people for guidance on what she should do.
And if you were not here at the beginning of the program as Commander-in-Chief, Operation Chaos, I urged all of you to go to her website, www.hillaryclinton.com.
Find the place where she wants to hear from you and send her a couple pieces of advice or encouragement or what have you.
Please keep it polite.
Please keep it above board.
This is a ruse.
What she's trying to do is establish a paper trail that she can show to the Obama campaign and say, see, see, look at all these that I got.
These people telling me I should go on.
These people telling me I should not get out of this race.
So she's angling for power.
She wants some power, be it the VEEP slot, be it a Supreme Court nomination, Secretary of Health and Human Services, where she could run health care and so forth.
She wants something.
She's not going to go away quietly.
Obama, in fact, has got to figure out a way to deal with this.
How many of you are familiar with the musical Camelot?
Seen Camelot, Gone?
You have not.
Brian, never mind.
I know you haven't.
Snurdley, seen Camelot.
Snurdley has not seen Camelot.
There is a song in Camelot.
It has been sung by many great song stylists.
My favorite version of this song happens to have been recorded in 1968 by the late and great Richard Harris, who sang MacArthur Park.
And the title of the song is How to Handle a Woman.
Yep, How to Handle a Woman.
Shakespeare, Camelot, How to Handle a Woman.
Richard Harris sang this song, recorded it on the Warner Brothers label.
Same thing as MacArthur Park back in 1968.
MacArthur Park was 67.
And I'm an incurable romantic.
I remember listening to this song and playing this song on the radio.
It was never a hit.
It was never a hit.
But, you know, you work at a radio station, record companies send you all the worthless stuff you'll never play, as well as the hits, because they hope you will play it.
Back in those days, they'd send you 45 RPM promo copies, and every radio station back then had thousands of songs they would never play versus the ones that they did.
Huge library.
And this was one of those.
And the music director's job was to listen to all these things that came in and see if there might be something there, aside from the general consensus of what was a hit at the time, that the audience might like.
So Obama has got to figure out how to handle Hillary.
In fact, the political Roger Simon has a story today, Obama's first test, Handling Hillary.
So I thought the lyrics from How to Handle a Woman, Shakespeare and Camelot, might be applicable.
And you may think you've not heard this song, but when I read the lyrics to you, you might find it familiar.
How to handle a woman?
There's a way, said the wise old man.
A way known by every woman since the whole Rigmarole began.
Do I flatter her?
I begged him answer.
Do I threaten or cajole or plead?
Do I brood or play the gay romancer?
Said he, smiling, no indeed.
How to handle a woman?
Mark me well, I will tell you, sir, the way to handle a woman is to love her.
Simply love her.
Merely love her.
Love her, love her.
Shakespeare, philosophy and prose.
How to handle a woman.
Obama, there's your ticket, pal.
Just love her.
Still got to deal with Bill.
Loving him won't work.
Loving her might.
I have not forgotten the pep talk.
I've not forgotten Pete in Houston.
My fertile mind wanders in many directions.
They all relate.
I never lose my place.
What Pete in Houston wanted, what Mona from LeMay, Missouri wanted yesterday, is to hear an answer from me that would never satisfy them.
No matter what I said, it wouldn't satisfy them.
No matter what answer I give, it would be annoying.
Did Pete want me to tell him that McCain is conservative?
Hey, don't worry about it.
He's going to be fine once the election's over.
Once he's won, he's got things to do here.
He's got to go out and get Democrats independence, but don't worry.
McCain's going to be a conservative.
He's going to be fine.
Did Pete want me to tell him that McCain can't be trusted?
So don't vote.
Did Pete want me to tell him to go third party for somebody like Bob Barr?
Pete wants me, Mona wanted me yesterday to fix what's gone wrong, to fix what has occurred.
I am not responsible for what's gone wrong.
I am the rock.
I am the bulwark.
I have not wavered.
What has gone wrong is not because of me.
And I'm not trying to absolve myself of having any involvement here or having a role, but in terms of having a role with what's gone wrong, it hasn't been me.
People are seeking answers to questions that you know really have no good answers.
If there were good answers, I would have been the first to come up with one.
There really aren't any good answers for this situation.
It has nothing to do with leadership.
It has everything to do with common sense and logic.
But there are things that we can do nevertheless.
I tried to discuss this yesterday with Mona.
Look, at some point, however it happens, the Republican Party, as it's currently constituted, is going to have to lose.
And it's going to have to lose big, and it's going to have to lose.
And understand it's never going to.
Can I tell you what's really happening with all this?
You keep asking me, why the country club Republicans and the Blue Bloods and the Liberal Rockefeller Republicans, why do they want to control the parts?
Follow the money, folks.
You ever heard of K-Street?
You ever heard of lobbyists, special interests, and all this sort of stuff?
Look, Washington Republicans and Washington Democrats have a lot in common.
And that is an agreement to sort of trade off on who runs the town every now and then so that both sides get to dip both hands in all the pockets that they can.
You and I are not of Washington.
You and I, we don't get to pal around with lobbyists.
We're not special interests.
We don't find ways to go to Washington earning $140,000 a year and 10 years later come out of there multi-millionaires.
They do.
We care about ideas.
We care about the country.
We're not interested in power for the exercise of power.
We're interested in preserving the country as it has been preserved for us by our forebears.
But sometimes that doesn't become the objective of political parties.
The Democrat Party cares about power, their own, forever, uninterrupted.
Our side's happy for a couple little periods of time where they can get their hands and their beaks moistened as well.
And this is why Reagan was never really loved by the blue-blood Rockefeller types.
He brought ideas to the party and he brought landslide victories.
But he was not universally loved, even in his own party.
So what we're really up against here is a party apparatus that does not have the same objectives inside Washington.
I'm not talking about the state parties.
The state parties are whole different animals.
And that's why I say, and I've got to go real quickly here, focus on the people in your local government.
State legislatures, governorships, that's where you're going to find, that's where the conservative farm team is.
Bobby Jindal is an example, Louisiana.
That's where they are.
Find them, support them, promote them, make them confident, because that's where the next cycle of the fix relies.
After this, a correction, how to handle a woman Camelot's Lerner and Lowe.
I mistakenly identified Shakespeare.
It's learner and low.
Here is Franz in Nanticook, Pennsylvania.
Hi, Franz.
Hey, Rush.
Megha Dittos.
Thank you.
Rush, I want to tell you, the last caller we were telling you're a wimp.
That's so not the truth.
You are the person.
You're our coach.
And I know it's a tough day for you, and I don't expect you to give us a big pep talk today.
I want you to sit down and I want you to give us.
I mean, I'm 38 years old.
I do want to run for politics.
But you're afraid that everybody and their brother is going to hammer you because you're a Republican.
You know, you have a little joke there where you come into the schoolyard and you turn down the radio.
I live in a very Democratic society.
I mean, my whole, my in-laws, everybody.
I'm the only Republican.
And I take abuse day after day.
I loved what you said about the president yesterday.
The man is a great man.
Sure, things right now don't look so good.
20 years down the road, when the history is written, it's going to be great.
It won't take that long.
I predict to you that three years from now, maybe four, people are going to be looking back and saying, Bush guy wasn't so bad.
I agree with you.
I think the thing that you need to do for us is, you know, maybe on the website, give us some direction for the young guys, because I know I'm not the only guy out there that wants to run that's scared of getting hammered.
I mean, I think if you give us a little bit of guidance, I think my generation out of anybody, we've been given so much, and we give our kids so much, that we need to start pulling back, and we need to start saying, hey, we can, there's not that much.
You know what?
I don't have a lot of time left here, but this is being hammered.
That's the one thing I can tell you about very briefly.
Look at it as a badge of honor.
Of course, you're going to get hammered as a Republican conservative.
The meaning of you being hammered is precisely because you will have been effective, and that will scare them.
Of course you are.
You need to look at that as a badge of honor and hope that you keep getting hammered.
A couple of hours ago, we had Mitch McConnell, the Republican leader in the Senate on the program talking about the global warming bill.
He has just shut down the Senate by forcing the reading of all 500 pages of the bill on the Senate floor.
This effectively shuts it down.
It's going to take a long time to read 500 pages.
Let me tell you what this is really about.
It's really about getting Harry Reid for breaking his promise.
Harry Reid promised the president and the Republicans in the Senate that by Memorial Day he would move on three of President Bush's appellate court nominations, and he has not.
And this has upset, of course, Senator Specter as well.
And so one of the tactics that Senator McConnell's employing here is a dual-edged sword because he shut down the Senate on everything, including debate on his stupid global warming bill.
And he's also sending a message to Dingy Harry.
Hey, look, pal, you promised us votes on three of these appellate court nominees.
And they haven't come through with that.
So hard ball in the United States Senate, thrown by the Republican leader Mitch McConnell.
Tammy in California City, California.
Next up, you are on the EIB network.
Hello.
Hi, Rush.
I was listening to Pete, and he was saying that he was going to vote for Obama to send a message that he doesn't like the way things are done.
But as far as I can remember in my 47 years, the only time things weren't done the Democrats way was when President Reagan was in office and when Newt was the Speaker of the House.
All the rest of the people.
Wait, a minute.
Now, the only thing things weren't done, the Democrats were.
Oh, okay.
I misunderstood you.
Okay, go ahead.
And so the Republicans never get their way except for those two times.
The Democrats just rule over the Republicans all the time.
So how does he think it's going to send a message?
Well, because the theory is that Obama is such a disaster and with a Democrat majority in the House and Senate that they would literally wreck the U.S. economy.
It would be Jimmy Carter's second term, which led to Ronald Reagan, by the way, among many factors.
I'm not trying to take anything away from Reagan, obviously.
But Jimmy Carter with 21% interest rates and 14% unemployment and 68-degree thermostats in the winter and Jimmy Carter telling people that the problem was the American people being lazy and so forth.
That led to a 49-state landslide by Ronaldus Magnus.
And so the theory is, if the Republicans are not going to stand up for themselves and are not going to provide leadership in opposing liberalism, all right, fine.
Also what the theory, or part of the theory is just clean house.
If there's some dead wood in the Republican Party and elective office, get rid of them.
At some point, start over.
If they're not doing their job, then clean house and get rid of it.
It's too important to just leave to chance.
So that's why the people like Pete are thinking in that regard.
There's also a second aspect to it.
If indeed you got these huge majorities in the House and Senate, okay?
And you got McCain as president.
Well, McCain agrees with Obama global warming, illegal immigration, cap and trade policies.
What's the difference?
Besides, McCain loves going along with Democrats.
That's how he gets his credentials.
If the Democrats are a vast majority in the House and Senate, and if the country's going to go down the tubes anyway, who do we want to get the credit for to the blame?
Do we want to get Democrats or Republicans to blame for it?
Definitely the Democrats because that's why people are thinking, bite the bullet, four years of Obama.
Look, you know what?
Let me just shoot straight, folks.
And I'm glad you called Tammy because I've got to get to these McCain speech soundbites.
Let me just shoot straight.
This is what we face.
Just in a real world situation.
And we all can do it.
We have done it throughout our lives.
One of the things about this whole discussion that sort of gnaws away at me is how focused we are on what's going on in Washington here.
Now, I understand there's a logical reason for it.
It's a presidential race.
And we would love to have somebody leading the country, articulating our values and inspiring the American people.
That's not going to happen.
We have got to face it.
As conservatives, we are not going to have an inspirational leader articulating our values, inspiring the American people.
Thus, therefore, we are going to have to inspire ourselves.
We are going to have to lead ourselves.
And we've done this.
We did it through the Clinton years.
We have done it through any number of previous administrations.
For those of you old enough, I mean, we had to go through LBJ.
We had to go through any number of Jimmy Carter.
And we triumphed.
At some point, when this is all over, when this election season is all over, what we're going to have to realize here is something that's always true, regardless who's in the White House.
We have the power to make ourselves content.
We have the power to pursue happiness on our own without regard to who's in Washington, realizing that Washington is going to be a huge obstacle.
It's just going to require more fortitude from all of us to work past it, to work harder, to overcome the obstacles that are going to be placed in our way.
State governments are going to be raising taxes too.
There are going to be some serious challenges to economic prosperity if the Democrats get as much control as they seek because they will try to wreck as much of the economy as possible.
Now, they may not look at it as wrecking it, but that's what's going to happen.
If they follow through on all these things they're promising, this global warming bill, which is theirs, and John Warner's, but the Democrats are the ones running it through.
It's a great example of what they're going to do.
The whole global warming hoax debate is, an example of what's ahead.
But America as a nation is made great not by who's in Washington.
On occasion, we do have greatness in Washington.
We have monuments for those who have been great.
They've saved the nation.
They have persevered during wartime.
We've got how many five or six out of 40 or 41 presidents.
But even during the times of great leaders and great presidents, they could have been great all they wanted, but without people.
It's the people that define.
Have you ever heard about American greatness, American exceptionalism?
What is that?
American greatness, American exceptionalism is all of us, not them.
It's all of us.
And I'm not making an us versus them argument here.
I'm just saying we're the ones that make the country work.
You are.
We're the ones that get up every day and make this economy hum.
They're the ones that put obstacles in our way.
Even when we have a friendly administration, we still have obstacles in our way.
There are previous policies that even our guys can't get rid of.
Yet we always triumph because we have the freedom, the inertia, the energy, the ambition, the desire, the drive.
We're just going to need a lot more of those things.
And that's what we face.
But that's such an opportunity, too, for genuine happiness.
If you let your happiness and your contentment, because happiness is elusive, if you let your contentment be permanently affected by whoever's in Washington, then you are sacrificing so much of your own potential as a human being, as a family leader, family member, or what have you, as an American as well.
Yeah, it's great to have leaders in Washington or there are some, but we're not going to have that this time around.
It's just a reality.
We're going to have it on the EIB network.
There'll be plenty of inspiration and motivation here.
And going to be elected leadership.
So all is not lost.
These cycles have happened many times.
You know, I was watching the other day.
I meant to comment on this.
Time just didn't permit it.
There was a ceremony, and I wish I could remember the soldier's name.
Got the Congressional Medal of Honor.
What was his last name?
McGinnis McGinnis.
19-year-old soldier who threw himself on the grenade, yes, to save his unit.
And there was a ceremony in the White House to present the medal to his parents with the president, with an official military contingent, speechifying and so forth and so on.
This got covered on the cable news channels.
I think Fox covered a little bit of it.
Yeah, Ross McGinnis, 19 years old.
But in the heat of this presidential campaign, there wasn't a whole lot said about it.
But as I was watching it, And particularly focusing on the parents of this 19-year-old man, I got to thinking, as I always do, it's just such a shame that we honor these people when they're dead.
Congressional Medal of Honor can only go to the dead, but it's still a shame.
We name streets after people after they're gone.
We build monuments to them after they're gone.
We do all this for their families and for us and for the living.
And it's not going to change.
I was looking at his parents.
They lost their 19-year-old son, and there are military families like that all over this country who have lost their sons and their daughters in this conflict and in previous conflicts.
But I looked at those two people and I saw the country.
Those are the people that make the country work.
Ross McGinnis's mom and dad and Ross McGinnis.
Those are the people that make the country work.
They're genuine heroes.
These people, it had to be a proud moment, but you could just see the combination of honor and sadness on both their faces at the same time.
And my heart just went out to them.
My heart went out to these people because nobody knew who they were before this happened.
They weren't seeking fame.
They weren't making embarrassing life decisions, embarrassing their family and this.
They're just salt of the earth people, backbone of America, raised a son who wanted to save and defend his country.
And he did.
Lost his life in the process.
I say, those are the people that matter.
Those are the people that deserve for the respect and the awe and the honor that we all have when we think about the greatness of this country, American exceptionalism.
It was right there in the White House that day with Mr. and Ms. McGinnis and that Congressional Medal of Honor.
And I don't want to impugn any elected officials that were there.
But because many of them have served, some of them have, and the families that serve, or family members that serve.
But your heart didn't go out to the people in charge of the ceremony.
President Bush had tears in his eyes as all this was taking place.
So when you think about what can you do with all these obstacles, like somebody in the White House we disagree with, it's really not much of an obstacle when you think of what other people have faced and lost and have to overcome.
So we just have to continue to make America great in spite of who happens to be leading the damn country.
We've shown that we can do it in the past, which means we can keep doing it back after this.
Folks, there are millions, millions, millions of people, you among them, out there working every day to make the country work.
At the same time, there are others who are sitting around trying to figure out how they can take away part of what you have worked for.
After they have figured out how to take it away from you, they then scheme to find ways to give away some of it to others who haven't worked for it so that they will feel better about themselves and vote for the people who are taking away from you what you've earned.
Just have to work harder to overcome these obstacles.
Here's McCain.
We have three bites.
This is the most maddening portion of his speech last night in New Orleans, climate change.
Well, here, I don't need to preview it for you.
You just listen.
The next president must be willing to break completely with the energy policies, not just of the Bush administration, but the administrations that preceded his.
Senator Obama voted for the same policies that created the problem.
In fact, he voted for the energy bill promoted by the president and vice president Cheney, which gave even more breaks to the oil industry.
With forward-thinking Democrats and Republicans, I proposed a climate change policy that would greatly reduce our dependence on foreign oil.
Our approach was opposed by President Bush and by leading Democrats, and it was defeated by opposition from special interests that favor Republicans and those that favor Democrats.
I don't even need to add commentary.
He has to start at a next president got to break completely with the energy policies of the Bush administration.
Rips into Bush and Cheney for giving breaks to the oil industry.
This is a guy who says he's a Reagan conservative takes pride in the fact that Democrats and Republicans both opposed my bill.
This is the bill.
He's in favor of this debacle that is being read right now on the floor of the Senate, all 500 pages.
Good morning, America, today.
Ron Claiborne, the reporter interviewing Senator McCain, he said, why would Democrats who have supported a liberal Democrat be inclined, why should they vote for you, a conservative Republican?
They respect the fact that I've reached across the aisle to Democrats.
If I'm going to win this election, a key to winning this election will be independent voters and Democrats as well.
There you have it.
There you have it.
A question, why should liberal Democrats vote for you?
You're a conservative Republican.
Well, because I've reached across the aisle to Democrats.
I'm going to win this election.
A key to winning this election will be independent voters and Democrats as well.
He thinks he's going to be rewarded for all this independence.
And Claiborne said, well, you did not refer to what, for many Americans, certainly will be the historic moment of the country.
An African American is a nominee of the party.
And I congratulated Senator Obama not because of any reason except that he has run a very effective campaign and he's done a very admirable job.
And as I said, he's motivated lots of Americans to be involved in the political process.
They just sit around, they look at this, they hear these soundbites themselves at Democrat National Committee headquarters and they go rub their hands together.
They say, so Senator McCain wants to go on the honor basis, eh?
Senator McCain wants to tell everybody that Democrats are going to like him because he's worked with Democrats, eh?
Wants to tell them that, huh?
They are salivating at this.
Obama gave us just a little preview in his speech last night.
McCain's independence doesn't count for anything with Obama.
Not a whit.
He hasn't been independent enough.
Meanwhile, Obama has zero independence.
It's going to be a combination of interesting and frustrating to watch all this play out.
We'll be back in a minute.
You know, this certain aspects of this show, they've just not been my day-to-day.
A Medal of Honor does not require one to have died in the act of heroism in order to receive it.
I'm confusing it with something.
Nevertheless, because there are people who are alive who have received the Medal of Honor, sorry for the error, and forgive me.
I'm not Obama.
We'll be back tomorrow.
▲
Export Selection